Conference Speakers
We are proud to announce our ASBTE 2025 Conference plenary and keynote speakers, whom will share their insights and latest research in the industry.
Plenary Speakers

Prof. Chwee Teck Lim
National University of Singapore
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Professor Lim is the NUS Society Chair Professor and Director of the Institute for Health Innovation and Technology at the NUS. His research interests are in cell mechanobiology and the development of biomedical technologies for healthcare applications. He has co-authored over 500 journal publications and delivered more than 530 plenary/keynote/invited lectures. He is also a serial entrepreneur having cofounded six deep tech startups. Prof Lim is an Elected Fellow of nine academies and professional societies including the Royal Society, US National Academy of Inventors, ASEAN Academy of Engineering and Technology, the Academy of Engineering, Singapore and the Singapore National Academy of Science. He and his team have received over 130 research awards and honours including the Nature Lifetime Achievement Award for Mentoring in Science, Asia’s Most Influential Scientist, Highly Cited Researcher, ASEAN Outstanding Engineering Achievement Award, Asian Scientists 100, Wall Street Journal Asian Innovation Award (Gold) and President’s Technology Award among others.

Prof. Chun-Xia Zhao
The University of Adelaide
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Professor Chun-Xia Zhao is a Professor and an NHMRC Leadership Fellow in the School of Chemical Engineering at University of Adelaide (UoA), the Deputy Director of an Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence. Before she joined UoA in July 2021, she was a group leader and Future fellow at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, The University of Queensland. She leads a research group focusing on bioinspired materials and biomimetic devices (organ chips) for drug delivery and cancer therapy. She has been awarded three national prestigious fellowship (Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship 2011-2014 and ARC Future Fellowship 2015-2020, and NHMRC Leadership Fellowship 2022-now). Prof. Zhao has published >150 referred articles and book chapters in international top refereed journals such as Nature Nanotechnology, PNAS, Science Advances, Nature Comm, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, ACS Nano, Small, AM, AFM, and so on. She has been focusing on innovative research as evidenced by her seven patents. She has collaborated with many industry partners for translational research (Bioproton, BioCina, Cytiva, etc.) She has built extensive collaborations with scientists at top universities such as Harvard University, Brown University, etc.

Prof. Nicolas Voelcker
Monash University
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Professor Nicolas Voelcker is the Director of the Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication (MCN) and Professor at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Monash University. The core research activity in his laboratory is the study of silicon-based nanostructures at biointerfaces. Following from this more fundamental research, his focus is on the application of silicon-based nanostructured materials in biosensors, biochips, drug delivery and regenerative medicine.
He has authored over 500 peer-reviewed journal articles with over 25,000 citations, h-index 77, and has filed 49 patents many of which have led to licensing deals and start-ups. He has received fellowships from the German Research Foundation (DFG), the CSIRO and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He has served on the College of Experts of the Australian Research Council, is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, a winner of a Humboldt Research Award and a current Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow.
As Director of the MCN, he is overseeing the largest joint venture in the Australian university system, and is supporting over 30 companies in their commercialisation endeavours.

Prof. Nuria Montserrat
Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia
Keynote Speakers

Dr Giselle Yeo
The University of Sydney
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Dr Giselle Yeo is an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow and Senior Research Fellow at the Charles Perkins Centre and School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney. She completed her PhD in matrix protein biochemistry at the University of Sydney, then continued with postdoctoral studies in the biofunctionalisation of material surface for tissue engineering applications. With the support of a University of Sydney early-career development fellowship, Dr Yeo established a research program focused on understanding how extracellular matrix proteins regulate stem cell regenerative biology, and applying this knowledge towards functional stem cell-instructive materials. Her work has been recognised with several early-career research awards, including a NSW Young Tall Poppy Science Award, Selby Research Award, and Bob Fraser New Investigator Award.

A/Prof Wei Seong Toh
National University of Singapore
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Wei Seong Toh received his Ph.D. (2010) from the National University of Singapore (NUS). He did his post-doctoral training at the Harvard Medical School as an A*STAR International Fellow (2010-2012). In 2013, he joined NUS as an Assistant Professor, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2020. He is currently a tenured Associate Professor and Research Director at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, and a Principal Investigator at the NUS Tissue Engineering Program.
His research focuses on understanding the mechanisms for degeneration and developing multidisciplinary strategies for regeneration of tissues of the musculoskeletal system. To date, he has secured >SGD8M (direct cost) of funding, presented >60 plenary/keynote/invited talks, filed 3 patents/patent applications, and published >85 publications, accumulating h-index 47 and >18000 citations (Google Scholar). Together with his research team, he has garnered >50 research awards/honours, including the World’s Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University from 2020 to present.

Prof Grissel Trujillo de Santiago
Escuela de Ingeniería y Ciencias Tecnológico de Monterrey
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Grissel Trujillo-de Santiago is an Assistant Professor at Tecnológico de Monterrey and CSO of FORMA Foods. Grissel’s research is focused on the development of technologies based in chaos to produce multilayered and multimaterial 3D micro-structured living tissues. She has a Mexican patent and 6 patent-pending technologies, including 3D-chaotic-printing. Grissel has more than 70 publications (6000+ citations, H-index of 28). She has graduated 5 Ph.D., and 16 M.Sc. students. Grissel is a scientific advisor for the United Nations University-LATAM. Grissel has received several awards, including the Fellowship for Women in Science from L’Oréal-UNESCO, the 2024 Latin American Women in Chemistry Award – Emerging Leader in Chemistry by the American Chemical Society (ACS), and Professional Development Award by the International Society for Biofabrication (ISBF).

Prof Hang Ta
School of Environment and Science – Bioscience Griffith University
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Hang Ta is a Professor at School of Environment and Science and Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre, Griffith University. She is an ARC Future Fellow, and currently leads a team of 12 students and postdocs working on materials for diagnosis and treatment of life-threatening diseases. She has a unique skill set combining chemistry and biology skills. She got a PhD in biomaterials for drug delivery from University of Melbourne and then worked at Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute and University of Queensland before moving to Griffith University in 2020. Prof Ta has been awarded a number of prizes, grants and prestigious fellowships such as National Heart Foundation postdoctoral fellowship, NHMRC ECR fellowship and Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowship, ARC Future Fellowship. She has secured over $6.6 million ($4.9 million as lead investigator) in competitive grant funding from national funding agencies for both discovery and infrastructure projects. She is President of the Australian Society for Molecular and Imaging, Associate Editor of Artificial Cells, Nanomedicine and Biotechnology, is on Editorial Boards and is a peer reviewer for several journals, is a chair/co-chair of international and national conferences. She is a member of ARC College of Expert, serves on the committees of various scientific societies and also serves on different national grant review panels (e.g. ARC, NHMRC, MRFF).

A/Prof Anton Blencowe
University of South Australia
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Anton completed a Masters and PhD at the University of Reading (UK) developing diazirine based high-explosives before emigrating to Australia in 2006 to work at the University of Melbourne on a Dupont sponsored project to develop automotive paints. In 2009 he was awarded an ARC Postdoctoral Fellowship to develop new strategies towards cyclic polymers. In 2013 he moved to the University of South Australia (UniSA) to develop injectable contact lenses with the vision CRC, wound dressings with the Wound Management Innovation CRC and hydrogels with the Cell Therapy Manufacturing CRC. Anton currently leads the Applied Chemistry and Translational Biomaterials Group, which focuses on the development of controlled release systems for various applications in the pharmaceutical, veterinary and conservation fields.

Dr Pia Winberg
PhycoHealth

Prof James Hudson
QIMRB

Prof Nathalie Bock
Queensland University of Technology
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A/Prof. Nathalie Bock is a Group Leader at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) School of Biomedical Sciences, the QUT Research Lead at the Translational Research Institute (TRI), and Deputy Co-Director of the Max Planck Queensland Centre for Materials Science of Extracellular Matrices (MPQC). She earned her M.Sc. in Materials Science & Engineering (France, 2007) and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering & Medical Physics (QUT, 2014). Her research at TRI focuses on bioengineered tissue models to replicate the bone microenvironment in metastatic cancers. Key projects include an NHMRC Peter Doherty Fellowship (2015–2020) on prostate cancer, an Advance Queensland Mid-Career Fellowship (2021–2024) on breast cancer therapy, and an ARC DECRA Fellowship (2024–2027) on osteocyte networks. A/Prof. Bock integrates multiscale ECM design, biomaterials, biofabrication, and advanced characterization techniques to explore how biophysical and biochemical cues regulate tissue-specific architecture and cell-ECM interactions. She has secured $20M in research funding, including $2M as Lead CI, and has 70+ publications in top-tier journals (e.g., Nat Comms, ACS Nano, Biomaterials). A/Prof. Bock has delivered 65+ presentations worldwide, received multiple awards (e.g., ASMR Postdoctoral Medal 2017, ASBTE Young Investigator Award 2023, LSQ Gene Award 2024), and is a recognized leader in HDR/EMCR engagement in biomaterials, tissue engineering and biomedical technologies.

Prof. Warwick Duncan
University of Otago

Prof Thomas Scheibel
University of Bayreuth
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Prof. Dr. Thomas Scheibel is full professor for Biomaterials as well as Vice President for research and junior scholars at the University of Bayreuth. Further, he serves as the director of the University of Bayreuth Graduate School. Since 2014 he is a member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech). He initiated and chairs the topical committee on “Bioinspired and interactive materials” at the German Materials Society (DGM), is co-chairman of the TranregioSFB TRR225 “Biofabrication”, co-founder, shareholder and consultant of AMSilk GmbH (Germany), advisory board member of Humble Bee Ltd. (New Zealand), group leader of the New Materials Bayreuth GmbH (NMB), and member of the editorial boards of PLOS One, Scientific Reports, BioNanoScience, Biopolymers, International Journal of Bioprinting, and ACS Applied Engineering Materials.
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